After months of fanfare and anticipation, gigabit home Internet service Google Fiber finally went live on Tuesday in Kansas City. The search giant is offering 1Gbps speeds for just $70 per month—significantly faster and cheaper than what any traditional American ISPs are offering.

"We just got it today and I’ve been stuck in front of my laptop for the last few hours," Mike Demarais, founder of Threedee, told Ars. "It’s unbelievable. I’m probably not going to leave the house."

He lives in a four-bedroom house run by "Homes For Hackers" on Kansas City’s Hanover Heights neighborhood, just on the state border with Missouri. The house has become one of the hubs for the KC Startup Village, an informal group of entrepreneurs who have clustered around homes immediately eligible for Google Fiber.

Meanwhile, Demarais said that on an Ethernet connection, he’s seen consistent Google Fiber speeds of 600 to 700Mbps, with Wi-Fi topping out around 200Mbps. Even at the slower wireless speeds, that’s more than an order of magnitude faster than what most Americans have at home.

"The first thing I did was BitTorrent Ubuntu," he said. "I think that took two minutes, let me try it again right now."

Prior to Tuesday, Demarais—one of the house’s first two residents—said he’d been working out of local McDonald’s and Panera locations for their free Wi-Fi.

Enlarge/ This is 4428 State Line Ave., the "Homes for Hackers" headquarters.

Mi Wi-Fi es tu Wi-Fi

The Homes For Hackers, founded by local Web developer Ben Barreth, had originally been conceived as a matchmaking scheme between entrepreneurs who wanted a free place to live and work, and local families who would open their homes to them. (Ars covered that effort back in August.)

But once Google announced its fiber rollout schedule, Barreth realized the families that had signed up were not going to get crazy speeds until Summer 2013. So he took matters into his own hands and, with his wife’s blessing, he liquidated his Roth IRA to put 20 percent down on a house they eventually bought for $48,000 in September 2012.

The couple has no plans to profit from the house. Instead, they want to use it as a way to nurture Kansas City’s nascent tech community. He’s letting entrepreneurs like Demarais live in the house rent-free and utilities-free for three months—they just have to pay for their own groceries.

"We’re strong, devout Christians," Barreth told Ars. "I’ve been pushing on doors and a lot of doors have opened for me. I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do right now. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense but I really think it will benefit Kansas City. The whole reason why [we bought the house] was that no one in Kansas City was really exploiting fiber like we could be and this is the way I can bring in individuals that will exploit it. It helps that it’s not a really expensive house. [My wife] is a stay-at-home mom with two kids too, so we’re living off my one salary, and it’s still a strain. It’s a still a big strain."

He anticipates getting donations, sponsorships, or, the most-likely scenario, renting out one of the bedrooms via AirBnB to the first Google Fiber "tourists"—people who might want to come for a day or two at a time to try it out.

"$50 a night for 10 nights a month would cover mortgage and most of the utilities," he said.

Barreth has been so busy dealing with local media requests that he hasn’t yet had a chance to use the connection himself—he and his family live about 20 minutes away from the second house, and their neighborhood was not included in the first rollout regions.

Kansas City, setting itself apart

Demarais said he knew he’s been spoiled: "Wherever I go after this, my Internet speed is going to be ruined."

His company, Threedee, hopes to provide an added benefit to the growing 3D printing ecosystem.

"We’re building a front-end dev toolkit that lets developers view and manipulate 3D models in a browser," he said. "We have an API that lets you communicate those models directly to 3D printers entirely in javascript without need to convert to a 3D model. We want to shake up manufacturing with tools that will allow people to buy products made for them."

Demarais moved to Kansas City from Boston to work on his new startup—and while the move was driven in part by Google Fiber, being able to live rent-free for 90 days was huge. He had considered staying home in Boston or moving to San Francisco, but both cities are notoriously expensive.

"I don’t want to raise capital yet and it’s hard to do that if I would need to get a part-time job just to pay rent," he added. "All of that stuff is taken care for me, that was the big thing. People are too quick to discredit the value of a free-rent environment with like-minded people. KC needs to separate itself from the other scenes. Why here? Fiber is not enough. I think you need to have a dense startup community, and if young people are not moving here and trying to start startups, you need to artificially create that flow."

155 Reader Comments

Sigh, I appreciate what you are doing Mr Barreth, but is that really revelant

on a more positive note, Go google fibre, wish we had it here in the bay area

EDIT:I don't wont to drag this into a religious debate but since I have been called out in some of the other comments I will say thisPerhaps the comment was poorly worded, perhaps his religious belief did motivate him, what I meant to say is that is a poor reason to do something. If the reason you do something (good or bad) is because of your religious beliefs, then that is a bad thing, for there in nothing in religion itself that allows you distinguish good from bad

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

I normally enjoy Ars articles, but this one feels like it bounced from one topic to a completely unrelated one and then back again.

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

I normally enjoy Ars articles, but this one feels like it bounced from one topic to a completely unrelated one and then back again.

This outright contradicts what the article says.

Quote:

"We’re strong, devout Christians," Barreth told Ars. "I’ve been pushing on doors and a lot of doors have opened for me. I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do right now. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense but I really think it will benefit Kansas City."

He brings up his religion as an explanation for why he is buying another house to promote the city's new fiber connection, even when he thought he was likely to LOSE money. If you disagree with me concerning his motivations here, you're calling him a liar. You and the poster above you sound like anti-religious idiots.

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

Is it inconceivable that his Christianity is in fact one of, even the primary, motivating factor in what he's doing? I think you do him a disservice assuming mercenary motives.

Most people won't argue with the notion that religion has been one of, even the primary, causal factor in any number of atrocities, murders, and casual acts of cruelty.

I fail to see why we can so easily blame religion for terrible things people do, then refuse to accept that it could be just as responsible for the occasional positive act.

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

I normally enjoy Ars articles, but this one feels like it bounced from one topic to a completely unrelated one and then back again.

This outright contradicts what the article says.

Quote:

"We’re strong, devout Christians," Barreth told Ars. "I’ve been pushing on doors and a lot of doors have opened for me. I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do right now. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense but I really think it will benefit Kansas City."

He brings up his religion as an explanation for why he is buying another house to promote the city's new fiber connection, even when he thought he was likely to LOSE money. If you disagree with me concerning his motivations here, you're calling him a liar. You and the poster above you sound like anti-religious idiots.

And then he goes on to talk about how he's trying to exploit Google Fiber to his financial advantage and talks about how much would be needed per month for him to break even. Investments usually start off as losses, but it's okay, you can ignore that huge section.

There is absolutely nothing relevant in there about how he's doing it because he's a "strong devout Christian". He just wanted to proclaim them for whatever self-satisfying reason.

I'm not against the idea of religion, but I'm not interested whether it's good or bad, rather whether this entire story needed any mention of his religion at all. Would it really have been all that different or had a different tone if he left out the Christianity part?

The truth is simple; no. It wouldn't have. He just wanted to score points for whatever reason with whatever crowd he wants to please. His religion did not lead him to do what he is doing, his logic and reason led him to that. God does not give financial and investment advice.

I'm not against him for being religion, so you can take your bigoted and judgmental attitude and shove it back up the whole it came from.

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

Is it inconceivable that his Christianity is in fact one of, even the primary, motivating factor in what he's doing? I think you do him a disservice assuming mercenary motives.

Most people won't argue with the notion that religion has been one of, even the primary, causal factor in any number of atrocities, murders, and casual acts of cruelty.

I fail to see why we can so easily blame religion for terrible things people do, then refuse to accept that it could be just as responsible for the occasional positive act.

I'm not assuming "mercenary" motives. He wants to make money. He has made an investment. Unless there is clear reason as to why Christianity is involved, the quote just seems as out of place as me saying "I like turtles" before explaining to you how my cloud-storage startup will work.

Sigh, I appreciate what you are doing Mr Barreth, but is that really revelant

on a more positive note, Go google fibre, wish we had it here in the bay area

He's providing rent-free housing with no financial gain. Logic didn't motivate his actions, kindness did. Now where did that kindness come from? For some, life success, financial stability, parents, a tragic event, the way we're raised and the values we're taught. He attributes his kindness to God.

Why is that attribution less relevant than any other? I.e. "I had the money to do it."

And then he goes on to talk about how he's trying to exploit Google Fiber to his financial advantage and talks about how much would be needed per month for him to break even. Investments usually start off as losses, but it's okay, you can ignore that huge section.

There is absolutely nothing relevant in there about how he's doing it because he's a "strong devout Christian". He just wanted to proclaim them for whatever self-satisfying reason.

I'm not against the idea of religion, but I'm not interested whether it's good or bad, rather whether this entire story needed any mention of his religion at all. Would it really have been all that different or had a different tone if he left out the Christianity part?

The truth is simple; no. It wouldn't have. He just wanted to score points for whatever reason with whatever crowd he wants to please. His religion did not lead him to do what he is doing, his logic and reason led him to that. God does not give financial and investment advice.

I'm not against him for being religion, so you can take your bigoted and judgmental attitude and shove it back up the whole it came from.

It sounds like you're just misreading the article at this point. When he's talking about "exploiting" the fiber, it's absolutely clear from context that he means exploiting it for the benefit of the city; he also makes it clear that he is not motivated by or expecting financial gain.

I'm not bigoted for catching a bias to which you are blind. I'll be honest, I didn't like that he threw the "I'm a Christian" bit in there either, but to say it isn't relevant to his purchase of the house is incorrect.

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

Is it inconceivable that his Christianity is in fact one of, even the primary, motivating factor in what he's doing? I think you do him a disservice assuming mercenary motives.

Most people won't argue with the notion that religion has been one of, even the primary, causal factor in any number of atrocities, murders, and casual acts of cruelty.

I fail to see why we can so easily blame religion for terrible things people do, then refuse to accept that it could be just as responsible for the occasional positive act.

I'm not assuming "mercenary" motives. He wants to make money. He has made an investment. Unless there is clear reason as to why Christianity is involved, the quote just seems as out of place as me saying "I like turtles" before explaining to you how my cloud-storage startup will work.

Fair enough; I apologize for the use of the loaded word "mercenary."

That said, I still haven't seen any rational - by which I mean, evidence-based - reason for you to believe that his religious beliefs couldn't have played a significant role in his decision. There does seem to be a clear reason to believe his religious beliefs motivated, or at least helped to motivate, his decision: he claims that they did.

The only reason I can see to assume he's lying is if one takes the impossibility of religion motivating a positive action as axiomatic.

And then he goes on to talk about how he's trying to exploit Google Fiber to his financial advantage and talks about how much would be needed per month for him to break even. Investments usually start off as losses, but it's okay, you can ignore that huge section.

There is absolutely nothing relevant in there about how he's doing it because he's a "strong devout Christian". He just wanted to proclaim them for whatever self-satisfying reason.

I'm not against the idea of religion, but I'm not interested whether it's good or bad, rather whether this entire story needed any mention of his religion at all. Would it really have been all that different or had a different tone if he left out the Christianity part?

The truth is simple; no. It wouldn't have. He just wanted to score points for whatever reason with whatever crowd he wants to please. His religion did not lead him to do what he is doing, his logic and reason led him to that. God does not give financial and investment advice.

I'm not against him for being religion, so you can take your bigoted and judgmental attitude and shove it back up the whole it came from.

It sounds like you're just misreading the article at this point. When he's talking about "exploiting" the fiber, it's absolutely clear from context that he means exploiting it for the benefit of the city; he also makes it clear that he is not motivated by or expecting financial gain.

I'm not bigoted for catching a bias to which you are blind. I'll be honest, I didn't like that he threw the "I'm a Christian" bit in there either, but to say it isn't relevant to his purchase of the house is incorrect.

If I was the one being interviewed and before I began, I said "I'm a strong, logical, and reasonable atheist, and I chose to buy a house in Kansas", would you think that was normal and within reason? The answer that popped into your head first, not the "politically correct" response you're going to instead reply to me with, that's the truth and I have no doubt you're aware of it.

"The first thing I did was BitTorrent Ubuntu," he said. "I think that took two minutes, let me try it again right now."

Spoiler: show

Hah, so did I just now, and I won the virtual dick swinning contest.

That said. I have this speed because I live in a dorm. I'm kinda considering moving to an apartment, and with that also comes things like deciding which internet speed I want, or really, how much I really need before any faster becomes pointless.

Since we have ViaPlay, Netflix, HBO and other tv-channels (edit: I'll just do the first three for the free trial month, but streaming TV is a thing anyway, I want to do), I gather I need to be able to watch that live, while also downloading. Live streaming is what, 6mbit? Options I am looking at is 6mbit for mini package, 12mbit for small package, 20mbit for medium etc. Frankly I'm going with 12mbit even though 20mbit is like 5 USD more a month.

So, IMHO, 12mbit to me right now seems to be the limit where everything more is just kinda, nice, but not if you have to pay for it. Doesn't Google also offer a lower tier for free? I'd have gotten that in his shoes.

I at least can't think of anything I am doing now with my connection, that I couldn't do just as fine with a 12mbit connection, except screencapping downloading Ubuntu really fast.

Amid the debate about whether this guy used Christianity for "sound financial planning" or not...we've missed the most important parts of the article.

$48,000 for a decent house? Holy crap, that wouldn't get me a 30% down payment on a two bedroom slum where I live, and I am unfortunately left with only Comcrap as my internet provider for a whopping 15/3 Mbps (in practice on a good day) connection for $50+ per month.

I'll be off trying to figure out some reasons why I'm not quitting my job, cashing out my retirement savings, and buying a house outright with cash, in Kansas City...

Amid the debate about whether this guy used Christianity for "sound financial planning" or not...we've missed the most important parts of the article.

$48,000 for a decent house? Holy crap, that wouldn't get me a 30% down payment on a two bedroom slum where I live, and I am unfortunately left with only Comcrap as my internet provider for a whopping 15/3 Mbps (in practice on a good day) connection for $50+ per month.

I'll be off trying to figure out some reasons why I'm not quitting my job, cashing out my retirement savings, and buying a house outright with cash, in Kansas City...

Which other important part? You mean where we started to read about Google Fiber and it's real speeds and then we suddenly started to read about some guy who bought a house and wants to essentially resell Google Fiber through a motel service, and then back to Google Fiber again?

I have a question about this startup that maybe someone can answer for me.

Quote:

We have an API that lets you communicate those models directly to 3D printers entirely in javascript without need to convert to a 3D model.

First of all, this would imply, i think, that you're using his 3D printer since it would require some special firmware. This is essentially a walled garden unless people adopt this as a standard. Which, while possible, doesn't seem likely because of my next point.

Unless I'm missing something there is little difference between sending the printer a command in JS or in the form of a 3D model that it should print. Besides printing something, what other commands are you going to issue to the printer? This software just moves the act of creating the 3D model from the PC to the printer. If you need to "customize" something through a browser then why not just have the JS create a customized model in some open source format that's already adopted and send that to the printer? This seems like a nasty case of that one xkcd comic

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

Is it inconceivable that his Christianity is in fact one of, even the primary, motivating factor in what he's doing? I think you do him a disservice assuming mercenary motives.

Most people won't argue with the notion that religion has been one of, even the primary, causal factor in any number of atrocities, murders, and casual acts of cruelty.

I fail to see why we can so easily blame religion for terrible things people do, then refuse to accept that it could be just as responsible for the occasional positive act.

How about because they're both wrong. It's a *person* doing terrible things, it's a *person* doing positive things, and then we, and here's the hard part, *they* attribute it to their religion.

It's okay by me but it's backwards from the reality. A person does a good thing because he is a good person, and then attributes it to his religion - not the other way around.

The devout Christian bit was totally unneeded. What he's doing is interesting but I just don't understand why he needs to attribute it to being Christian. He's trying to cash in on what he thinks will be the Kansas City tourism segment. That's all there is to it.

I normally enjoy Ars articles, but this one feels like it bounced from one topic to a completely unrelated one and then back again.

This outright contradicts what the article says.

Quote:

"We’re strong, devout Christians," Barreth told Ars. "I’ve been pushing on doors and a lot of doors have opened for me. I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do right now. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense but I really think it will benefit Kansas City."

He brings up his religion as an explanation for why he is buying another house to promote the city's new fiber connection, even when he thought he was likely to LOSE money. If you disagree with me concerning his motivations here, you're calling him a liar. You and the poster above you sound like anti-religious idiots.

I have to agree with *all* sides in this one. That is to say, when I read the line in the story I immediately wondered, "What the hell (ahem) is he bringing that up for?" and then as soon as I read the first two people mentioning how it was entirely superfluous I had the extra thought, "Okay, he said it to illustrate why he was trying to help seemingly without there being anything in it for him."

There's no crime in the initial thought - it feels out of place - but there's no crime in giving it a moment's further thought and realizing it had its place - it was his way of explaining why he was doing something that costs him money and effort.